Tulsa
Oklahoma Stories Brought Out Of The Shadows
by | Feb 9, 2024 3:10 pm
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Posted to: Spoken Word
ALICIA CHESSER PHOTO
Sharing stories in the light
Live Lit Night
Heirloom Rustic Ales
Tulsa
Jan. 25, 2024
If, like me, you sometimes harbor romantic fantasies about literary experiences that happen in dark, gritty, hole-in-the-wall venues (probably with some sort of bongo drum / absinthe accompaniment), trying to find something like that in Tulsa may leave you disappointed. “Beat” we ain’t. But there’s something to be said for sharing stories in the light. About as far from dark and gritty as it’s possible to be, Heirloom Rustic Ales is one of several local spots hosting regular writer’s nights these days — all rooms that turn out to be warm, welcoming, well-lit settings for, well, lit.
I don’t use the word “renaissance” often, but when you can find some sort of reading series or literary open mic going on every week now in Tulsa, that might just be the word. There are plenty of formal author talks happening, too, but I’m talking homegrown, come-as-you-are, show-up-and-read gatherings where it’s okay to get vulnerable in public, share something you’re not finished with, or present an experiment. “Try softer,” goes my current mantra of choice: these events are perfect places to give that approach a go.
The most recent edition of the long-running Live Lit Night, hosted bimonthly at Heirloom by OSU-Tulsa’s Center for Poets and Writers, was a stunning instance of the bravery-meets-kindness quality of these kinds of events — one that turned out to have some serious literary heft. I walked into the taproom at one minute to 7pm to find every seat filled and many folks standing. Across the room from a TV on mute, with copies of the Okie-published Creative Field Guide to Northeastern Oklahoma and Fish Gather To Listen on display on the bar, a little open space awaited the night’s readers: 11 local contributors to a forthcoming collection of essays called We Belong To The Land: Changemakers In Oklahoma and a handful of others who signed up for the open mic that wrapped up the event. Several writers scribbled edits on their pages or went over their pieces on laptop screens, surrounded by friends and family, many sipping beers with the nervous-but-excited energy of introverts at a party.
As CPW’s director, OSU-Tulsa professor Lindsey Smith, stepped up to introduce the evening, the packed room went respectfully silent — and stayed that way for a solid two hours (aside from enthusiastic applause) as readers took to the mic. We Belong To The Land, which Smith is editing with historian Russell Cobb with support from the Artists Creative Fund, is an evolution of a 1998 OU Press essay collection called An Oklahoma I Had Never Seen Before, filled with “alternative views of Oklahoma history.” Like that book, this new one will center narratives about complicated belonging, forgotten histories, erased pioneers, and overlooked populations. If you think this is a one-dimensional state, mostly defined by football and Garth Brooks, these stories invite you to widen your lens (and maybe ask why football and Garth Brooks take up so much air in the first place).
Writers read from their essays-in-progress, and each one went off like a firework. We heard stories about Hmong and Zomi people who’ve made a home in Tulsa for generations. (Did you know that Zomi is the third most-spoken language in the city?) Stories from other immigrants navigating life in Oklahoma — hopeful, harrowing, haunting — held space with imagined queer futures and hard-fought efforts to speak with children about the complexity of this place, where, as writer Jes McCutchen said, “every single turn is an intersection.” The 2023 National Teacher of the Year, Tulsa’s own Rebecka Peterson, asked “Who is holding our teachers’ stories?” Molly Bullock shared excerpts from her investigative Watershed series, and Cullen Whisenhunt had me entranced with a piece called “These Caddo Hills,” which demonstrated that even in a town of 1,000 people, there are still stories that haven’t been told. (A short debate about where to put the accent in “Durant” had the crowd laughing.)
As bartender Jantzen McGhee ever-so-quietly prepped for closing, the open mic went live with historical fiction, poems (including one by yours truly; thanks to Karl Jones for reading it!), and a keen-edged evaluation of Killers Of The Flower Moon written and read by Louis Gray, whose great-grandfather Henry Roan was one of the Osage murdered here in the 1920s. This flurry of spontaneous voices — coming at the end of a night full of voices — had me wishing for just a few more minutes with all these people. And then I reflected: we all live here together, all the time.
With people from so many micro-communities sharing space on the mic and in the crowd, this Live Lit Night was a simultaneously friendly and galvanizing experience of the diverse stories that make up this city’s past and present. “The hidden agenda [of these events] is really to build community,” Lindsey Smith told me. “Because I’m not moving away yet.” To know each other, to do better for each other, we need to see and hear each other. If you’re looking to understand what it means to belong to this place, get yourself to a well-lit writer’s night soon.
Next for Alicia: Tulsa Opera’s “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change”
